I don’t know about you, but the recent passing of James Gandolfini (along with having read Brett Martin’s new book) has had me feeling nostalgic for The Sopranos of late, so much so that I’ve taken to DVRing the daily reruns HBO airs and watching them when I go to bed at night. The other day an episode aired that contained a scene I had kind of forgotten about, but since then I’ve probably watched it no less than 50 times, I swear, and I’ve come to think that it may be the single funniest scene of the show’s entire run.

I’m talking about the scene in which Christopher, his junkie/gambling addict writer pal J.T. and Little Carmine pitch Cleaver, their get-rich-quick slasher film concept, to a room full of wiseguys. After obviously spending way too much time analyzing it, I’ve come to believe that everything about it — the writing, the acting, the shot-framing, the direction — is perfect. It’s a virtually flawless scene. The only beef I can come up with is that Paulie Walnuts wasn’t included in the scene as a potential investor, because every Sopranos scene featuring Paulie is a good Sopranos scene. I believe that the scene is so good, in fact, that it can be understood and enjoyed even by those who’ve never watched a second of the show. But for benefit of those who haven’t seen it, here’s a little background.

The writer here, J.T., is in debt to the mob, Christopher in particular. Problem is, J.T. is dead broke. So as a way to pay his debt, it’s decided that J.T. will write a “Saw meets The Godfather” slasher flick that Christopher, who has long held Hollywood aspirations, and Little Carmine, a proud porn producer, can develop.

Such a flick, they believe, would be a “f*cking money machine”…

I love so many things about this scene, but most of all I think I love the “how the hell did I get myself into this” look on J.T.’s face most of all…

I started watching them again, and my favorite scene has to be the poker game in S2 when silvio is going ape shit. “I like to put cheese in my socks so I can wak eup in the morning and my feet smell like your sisters crotch!” then silvio proceeds to call him “cheese fuck” Classic Classic.

@dissident…He really is great. In Brett Martin’s book he talks about how David Chase originally wanted to cast him as Tony Soprano. Hard to imagine him in that role. Regardless, once Gandolfini read for the part it was all over. He was the guy.

It’s not funny, but Season 3, Episode 2, at Tony’s mom’s wake, Tony opens a closet door with a mirror on it as Paulie and Furio discuss tracking down the winners of Survivor & extorting their winnings from them.

But, very briefly in the mirror, you see Big Pussy as he closes the door. This show was dense.

Iono, the Pinebarrons episode is fantastic but I almost feel like it is over-appreciated. I’m binge-rewatching the show myself (glad I’m not the only) and while I haven’t gotten to it quite yet I seem to recall the episode where they have the street fair for some Italian saint to be filled with good humor.

For my money there’s no funnier Sopranos scene than the akward memorial for Tonys mother,what’s also great is how the bodyguard at the Bada Bing is constantly getting beaten up. Nice to know I’m not alone in my recent sopranos addiction, hbo go has every ep and bye hbo go us amazing

I thought Tony killed Christopher because CHris kept getting high (and reckless), and was also a major buzzkill when he was sober. When he would bitch and moan when the other guys were having drinks and shit, you knew his time was coming soon.